Informal Governance, State-Society Relations, and Public Service Co-Production in Yoruba Communities of South West Nigeria

This dissertation provides an original ethnographic and analytical account of how informal governance structures and state-society relations shape public service co-production outcomes in Yoruba communities across South West Nigeria, encompassing Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, and Ekiti States. Public service co-production literature, originating primarily from Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country contexts, inadequately theorises the role of pre-existing informal governance institutions in mediating co-production dynamics in societies with strong social capital structures. The dissertation employs a four-year interpretive ethnographic design combining participant observation in 12 community governance settings, 95 semi-structured interviews with community leaders, local government officials, service delivery professionals, and citizens, and archival analysis of community governance records from 2019 to 2023. Grounded Theory methodology, Geertzian thick description, and structured case comparison provide the analytical architecture. Ostrom's Co-Production Theory, Migdal's State-in-Society Framework, and Putnam's Social Capital Theory jointly provide the theoretical anchors. The dissertation proposes the Informal Governance-Co-Production Nexus Theory (IGCPNT), which identifies traditional leadership legitimacy, community solidarity networks, and state-community trust relationships as the three structural determinants of co-production intensity and quality in Yoruba governance contexts. Original contributions include the IGCPNT framework, the Yoruba Co-Production Index, and an ethnographically grounded typology of state-community governance relationships ranging from adversarial to synergistic. Policy implications target the formal recognition and empowerment of community co-governance structures in state and local government administrative frameworks. Keywords: informal governance, co-production, state-society relations, Yoruba communities, South West Nigeria.